The Great Army

A campaign for Viking Invasion. Download here:The Great Army

'The Great Army' is set in the latter half of the ninth century, the period when the Vikings almost conquered England. Britain has changed since 793. The victory gained by Egbert of Wessex in the battle of Ellenden in 825 was followed by the assimilation by Wessex of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex, though Mercia has thrown off rule from the south. The Picts suffered a disastrous defeat by the Vikings in 839, and then betrayal by Kenneth MacAlpin, the king of the Scots, and much of what remains of the former Pictish kingdom is under the rule of Dal Riada. Vikings have conquered and settled the north of Scotland and the Isle of Man, and have also established their kingdom of Dublin in Ireland. There are still no permanent Viking bases in England, however.

The original 793 campaign has the Vikings as raiders, using the seas and rivers to escape with their loot. The Vikings of 'The Great Army' are lords and settlers rather than bandits and their crews. In 866 they first landed on the east coast in numbers that allowed them to remain and hold territory, capturing York and renaming it 'Jorvik'. They fought and defeated in turn the armies of the Northumbrians, Mercians and East Anglians, and would have conquered Wessex as well were it not for the desperate resistance offered by King Alfred. However, elsewhere the Vikings were under pressure, pushed northwards in Scotland and driven out of Ireland. During the first half of the tenth century the Viking settlers were constantly at war with the English, and York was finally retaken in 954, with the expulsion of the last Viking king, Eric Bloodaxe.

The campaign is intended to be played at the expert level of difficulty. It begins in 867, with the Great Army in possession of York, and ends in 1016, when Cnut's invasion and conquest made England part of his Viking kingdom.

Good job amagi, but this thread belongs in the Engineer's guild, not the main hall.

Ludens, 'The Great Army' is a new campaign, rather than a mod. It won't alter the original game at all, unlike the mods at the Engineer's Guild.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amagi

capturing York and renaming it 'Jorvik'.

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I hate to be picky but I was under the impression that the Vikings actually founded Jorvik, from scratch. No previously existing settlement at all. Only later was the pronounciation of its name corrupted into 'York'.

A lot of English village and town names still bear signs of their Viking heritage. The -by and -thorpe endings supposedly have roots in their language and there's a concentration of those names in the north of England.

Dublin is an Anglicisation of something like Dubh Linh, which is Gaelic for 'black pool', so we have to assume the Vikings' name for the settlement was permanently lost and thus not all origins can be traced by name alone.

I'm going to have to research the story of York a bit. It's just that they have a whole tourist attraction there, dedicated to revealing the origins of the place in Viking times, as revealed by extensive archaeological research. If you could let us know what sources you are drawing from, I'd appreciate it.

Meh. When I try to open the Readme, it says "cannot load Word for Windows 6.0 files". Any chance of posting the Readme please?

EatYerGreens, York had been founded by the Romans as Eboracum and was later revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. I should have written 'capturing Eoforwic (York) and renaming it Jorvik'. Ivar and his Vikings were able to seize it because it was undefended.

Grey_Fox, here is the intro.

'THE GREAT ARMY' for Viking Invasion

by Amagi

'The Great Army' is set in the latter half of the ninth century, the period when the Vikings almost conquered England. Britain has changed since 793. The victory gained by Egbert of Wessex in the battle of Ellenden in 825 was followed by the assimilation by Wessex of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex, though Mercia has thrown off rule from the south. The Picts suffered a disastrous defeat by the Vikings in 839, and then betrayal by Kenneth MacAlpin, the king of the Scots, and much of what remains of the former Pictish kingdom is under the rule of Dal Riada. Vikings have conquered and settled the north of Scotland and the Isle of Man, and have also established their kingdom of Dublin in Ireland. There are still no permanent Viking bases in England, however.

The original 793 campaign has the Vikings as raiders, using the seas and rivers to escape with their loot. The Vikings of 'The Great Army' are lords and settlers rather than bandits and their crews. In 866 they first landed on the east coast in numbers that allowed them to remain and hold territory, capturing York and renaming it 'Jorvik'. They fought and defeated in turn the armies of the Northumbrians, Mercians and East Anglians, and would have conquered Wessex as well were it not for the desperate resistance offered by King Alfred. However, elsewhere the Vikings were under pressure, pushed northwards in Scotland and driven out of Ireland. During the first half of the tenth century the Viking settlers were constantly at war with the English, and York was finally retaken in 954, with the expulsion of the last Viking king, Eric Bloodaxe.

The latter part of the ninth century was a time of opportunity for the competing rulers of Britain, with their subjects prepared to submit to more militarised and centralised administrations. It might yet be too early for the British isles to be unified under one king- but if the ambition exists...

Installation

Extract to your Total War folder. The campaign should appear as another choice on your menu, with the Viking territories in black rather than white.

Contents

Two Great_Army.txt files, a startpos.txt file, a Jorvik_Build_Prod.txt file, a Jorvik_Unit_Prod.txt file and this readme.

Campaign Guide

The campaign is intended to be played at the expert level of difficulty. It begins in 867, with the Great Army in possession of York, and ends in 1016, when Cnut's invasion and conquest made England part of his Viking kingdom.

Irish- harder than the level chosen. The Irish are poor and divided amongst themselves. It may not be difficult to expel the Vikings from Dublin, but they will still retain control of the seas. The Saxons are building a navy as well.

Mercians- easier than the level chosen. The Mercians are still wealthy and powerful in 866, if no longer the overlords of England. Though that wealth is sure to tempt the dangerous Great Army, just to the north, the Mercian provinces are inland and are not as vulnerable to sea-borne raids as those of Wessex.

Northumbrians- much harder than the level chosen. If the Northumbrians accept the loss of Dere, they become much weaker- if they attempt to retake it they risk a catastrophe.

Saxons- much easier than the level chosen. Since 825 Wessex has been the leading kingdom of England. However, the kingdom is not organised for war and there are no ships to guard the vulnerable east and south coasts. The war in the north reduces the risk of Viking raids, allowing the Saxons to prosper in peace, for a time.

Scots- harder than the level chosen. After decades of civil war and treachery most of Scotland is at last united under one king. A prudent Scottish ruler can use the Great Army as an opportunity to deal with the weaker Vikings to the north, the English kingdoms on the lowland territory to the south and any rebels or resurgent Picts.

Vikings- much easier than the level chosen. Seapower has brought the Vikings territory all over Britain, but the less wealthy outposts have to be defended whilst England is plundered.

Welsh- harder than the level chosen. The Welsh have a long land border to defend against the Mercians, who may renew their attacks on their oldest enemy, despite the Viking threat.

Problems

Should you survive until 1016, you will still be credited with surviving until 1066.

Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amagi

EatYerGreens, York had been founded by the Romans as Eboracum and was later revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. I should have written 'capturing Eoforwic (York) and renaming it Jorvik'. Ivar and his Vikings were able to seize it because it was undefended.

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I might have known the Romans had something to do with it! In fact, I had heard of Eboracum before, having seen it marked on maps, I just hadn't made the connection.

Some sites show continuity of occupation from Roman through to Dark Ages while others show signs of abandonment and later resettlement. I don't know what applies in Yorks case but things like street patterns and the spacing of property boundaries (e.g. adjoining shop-fronts spaced at 1 perch apart) have been preserved and would seem to owe more to Anglo-Saxon or Viking style than Roman, so your account seems to be correct.

Thanks for the clarification.

[/picky]

The -wic ending on Anglo-Saxon place names designated a trading-place and may have originated in the Latin 'vicus'. I suppose 'Jorvik' could be the Norse 'translation' of 'Eoforwic', though it became 'York' rather than 'Yorwich'.

The decline of Mercia after the invasion of 866 may have been due to dynastic problems as much as lack of military organisation. Burgred, the last independent king, went into exile and the Mercian royalty who remained were associated with Viking rule, the sort of relationship that Guthrum might have been hoping to achieve when he tried to capture Alfred and his court. Mercian noblemen were still prominent in England and later helped to ensure that Athelstan, who had been brought up in Mercia, became king, rather than one of his rivals.

So, in the game, Mercia would have been defeated by the extinction of its royal family, and not simply overrun.

Alas, poor Yorwich, I knew him, Horwatio...

(with apologies to the Bard...)

It doesn't take a lot of mispronounciation to get York from Yorick (sp?) and, with that character being a Dane, it isn't too much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that they named the place after a person. "Jor's market", or some such.

Thanks for mentioning the -wic/vicus connection. It now makes sense to me what a baileywick gets its name from.

The Strathclyde Britons were defeated by Ivar the Boneless and the Vikings after a four-month siege of their chief fortress, Dumbarton Rock, in 870. The Vikings took many of the Britons to Dublin as slaves, though a few survivors fled to their kinsmen in Wales. The battle destroyed the kingdom of Strathclyde, which had been one of the three principal kingdoms of Scotland: it is possible that Constantine I of Scotland supported the Vikings.